Puddock thought it better the news should be proclaimed from Belmont.

‘Well, so I think myself,’ said Cluffe, and relapsed into silence till they parted, at the corner of the broad street of Chapelizod and Cluffe walked at an astounding pace on to his lodgings.

‘Here’s Captain Cluffe,’ said Mrs. Mason, to a plump youth, who had just made the journey from London, and was standing with the driver of a low-backed car, and saluted the captain, who was stalking in without taking any notice.

‘Little bill, if you please, captain.’

‘What is it?’ demanded the captain, grimly.

‘Obediar’s come, Sir.’

‘Obediar!’ said the captain.  ‘What the plague do you mean, Sir?’

’Obediar, Sir, is the name we give him.  The pelican, Sir, from Messrs. Hamburgh and Slighe.’

And the young man threw back a piece of green baize, and disclosed Obediar, who blinked with a tranquil countenance upon the captain through the wires of a strong wooden cage.  I doubt if the captain ever looked so angry before or since.  He glared at the pelican, and ground his teeth, and actually shook his cane in his fist; and if he had been one bit less prudent than he was, I think Obediar would then and there have slept with his fathers.

Cluffe whisked himself about, and plucked open the paper.

’And what the devil is all this for, Sir? ten—­twelve pounds ten shillings freightage and care on the way—­and twenty-five, by George, Sir—­not far from forty pounds, Sir,’ roared Cluffe.

‘Where’ll I bring him to, Sir?’ asked the driver.

The captain bellowed an address we sha’n’t print here.

‘Curse him—­curse the brute! forty pounds!’ and the captain swore hugely, ’you scoundrel!  Drive the whole concern out of that, Sir.  Drive him away, Sir, or by Jove, I’ll break every bone in your body, Sir.’

And the captain scaled the stairs, and sat down panting, and outside the window he heard the driver advising something about putting the captain’s bird to livery, ‘till sich time as he’d come to his sinses;’ and himself undertaking to wait opposite the door of his lodgings until his fare from Dublin was paid.

Though Cluffe was occasionally swayed by the angry passions, he was, on the whole, in his own small way, a long-headed fellow.  He hated law, especially when he had a bad case; and accordingly he went down again, rumpling the confounded bill in his hand, and told the man that he did not blame him for it—­though the whole thing was an imposition; but that rather than have any words about it, he’d pay the account, and have done with it; and he stared again in the face of the pelican with an expression of rooted abhorrence and disgust, and the mild bird clapped its bill, perhaps expecting some refreshment, and looking upon the captain with a serene complacency very provoking under the circumstances.

’How the devil people can like such misshapen, idiotic-looking, selfish, useless brutes; and, by George, it smells like a polecat—­curse it! but some people have deuced queer fancies in more matters than one.  The brute! on my soul, I’d like to shoot it.’